Vendetta

“What do we do now?”

“We talk to her,” Keller said. “See if she’s ready to tell us why she killed Marker.”

Looking at the woman, Marion sincerely doubted that was going to happen.

Someone knocked at the open door. A deputy leaned into the room. “Sheriff Keller? There’s a man in the lobby who says he’s that woman’s attorney. He’s demanding to see her.”

That surprised Marion. She looked at Keller. “Has she called anyone?”

Keller shook his head. “Did the attorney give you a name?”

“Yes, sir. Even gave me a card.” The deputy entered the room and handed it over.

Keller took the card. Marion looked over his shoulder.

Adam D. Gracelyn

Attorney-At-Law

A mild expletive escaped Keller’s lips. He looked at the deputy and nodded. “Bring Gracelyn to me.”

Marion knew the name. The Gracelyns were part of the old money families in Phoenix. She’d never met any of them, but she’d read about them in the Phoenix Sun society pages. There had been something about Adam Gracelyn passing the bar exam a few years ago.

The deputy left.

“This isn’t good,” Keller said quietly.

“Why?”

“Adam Gracelyn’s a real firebrand when you get him riled. With all his daddy’s money, you’d think he’d just settle down to a nice long stay as one of daddy’s corporate lawyers. Instead he signed on with the public defender’s office. He specializes in representing minorities and the disenfranchised. He’s going to be trouble.”

Chapter 6

Gracelyn Ranch

Outside Phoenix, Arizona

Now

David stared at the picture in his sister’s Athena Academy yearbook. His younger sister Allison lived in Washington, D.C., these days, but she kept most of her personal things at the family home.

Besides, knowing Allison, she probably had another yearbook with her. She had two copies of everything. She was the most thoroughly organized person David had ever seen. She currently worked for the National Security Agency in a job so secret she never talked to anyone about it.

Allison had been best friends with Lorraine “Rainy” Miller. But that relationship had been troubled. Even though Allison wouldn’t have admitted it then—and might not even admit it now—she’d been somewhat jealous of Rainy’s successes at the academy. Allison’s own student group, the Graces, had constantly vied with Rainy’s team, the Cassandras, for top honors but had often come out second-best.

The competition had been fierce, and it had also been good for both groups. But the competitive edge had never truly gone away.

Later, when circumstances required Rainy to live with Allison at the Gracelyn home for a while, David had fallen in love with Rainy like he’d never fallen for a woman before.

But that didn’t work out, did it? David chided himself. And you’ve certainly got more to do than spend your morning moping over old yearbooks and wondering what might have been.

Still, he stared at the picture of Rainy and the group of girls she’d mentored through the academy. All of them were there: Kayla Ryan, Tory Patton, Alexandra Forsythe, Josephine Lockworth, Samantha St. John, Darcy Steele and Rainy at their center.

The picture had been taken somewhere in the hinterlands of the White Tank Mountains where the academy was located. The Cassandras had to have been on a team-based excursion. All of them wore climbing gear.

David thought he could remember the story. Allison had told him one version of it, and Rainy had given him another.

In the picture, Rainy was young. She had to have been seventeen, maybe eighteen. She’d only gotten more beautiful and more defined as she’d gotten older.

For a while, David and Rainy had been close. Then something happened. He still hadn’t been sure what. But while he’d been away at college, Rainy had grown distrustful of him. Then she’d left the Gracelyn home.

The next time he’d heard about her had been when she’d enrolled at Harvard as he was graduating. They’d just never connected again. Then she’d gotten married.

Now she was dead.

Silently David cursed Winter Archer’s presence at the house for bringing up all the old memories and pain. He cursed Christine Evans as well, but he was equally certain that Christine was right. The answers to the puzzle of Rainy’s death, the genetically mutated children and the kidnappings lay in his mother’s past.

He just didn’t know how he was going to handle Winter Archer’s investigation without going crazy thinking about what could have been.

Winter walked through the big, silent house to David’s office. During the last three days, they’d seen each other very little. She had the distinct impression that had been because David wanted it that way.

If she hadn’t reached an impasse in her research, or if the story about the woman who had murdered Colonel Thomas Marker hadn’t been so compelling, Winter knew she wouldn’t have sought David out now.

The sooner you get out of here, the better off you’re going to be. You need to be back home in L.A. working on another book. You’re at your best when you’re working.

If it hadn’t been for Christine—and now her own curiosity— Winter knew she’d have been gone in a heartbeat. But Christine was involved, and she couldn’t walk away from that story without knowing the rest of it.

News about Marker’s murder had gradually subsided. In the end, it had disappeared. There were only a couple of footnotes that let her know Marker’s body had been shipped back to distant family members.

Of course, given what had happened in 1968 at about the same time, losing sight of one unexplained murder wasn’t a big thing. The assassination that had taken place at around the same time had shaken the world.

David’s study door was open. Winter crossed to it and lifted a hand to rap against the door frame. The sight of him sitting so grim and silent at the desk gave her pause. He was a beautiful man. He sat with his shirtsleeves rolled nearly to his elbows and his tie at half-mast. He had one hand against his head with his fingers threaded through his hair.

There was something wounded and innocent in his posture. All those feelings she’d felt back when she was a girl echoed within her.

You’re still crushing after all these years? Winter couldn’t believe it. Get over it. You don’t have time for this. And if he wasn’t interested back then, he’s definitely not going to be interested now.

Then she saw he was staring at a book lying open on his desk. As she watched, he carefully thumbed through pages filled with pictures.

A photo album? Winter wasn’t sure. But the possibility made her feel badly. Her presence there, in the house where he’d known his mother, had to have made that absence even sharper and more empty. Oh, Christine, you can’t have known what you were going to trigger.

Winter knocked.

David looked up immediately. Guilt made his movements jerky as he closed the book and slid it to one side.

“Yes?” he said.

“I need more information.”